Absolutive or nominative markers mark the actor of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb. Ergative or genitive markers mark the object (usually indefinite) of an intransitive verb and the actor of a transitive one. They also mark possession. Oblique markers are similar to prepositions in English. They mark things such as location and direction. Furthermore, noun markers are divided into two classes: one for names of people (personal) and the second for everything else (common).

Below is a chart of case markers. Mgá (pronounced [maˈŋa]) marks the plural.

Absolutive

Ergative

Oblique

Locative

Common singular

ang/'yung (iyong)

ng [naŋ]/ n'ung (niyong)

sa

nasa

Common plural

ang mgá/'yung mgá (iyong mgá)

ng mgá/n'ung mgá (niyong mgá)

sa mgá

nasa mga

Personal singular

si

ni

kay

na kay

Personal plural

sina

nina

kina

nakina

Examples:

Dumating ang lalaki.has-arrived the man
"The man arrived."

Nakita ni Juan si Maria.did-see by John Mary
"John saw Mary."

Pupunta sina Elena at Roberto sa bahay ni Miguel.Will-go Helen and Robert to house of Miguel
"Helen and Robert will go to Miguel's house."

Nasaan ang mgá aklát?At-where the book(s)
"Where are the books?"

Na kay Tatay ang susi.At with Father the keys
"Father has the keys."

Malusog 'yung sanggol.Healthy that baby
"That baby is healthy."

Pronouns (Panghalip)

Like nouns, personal pronouns are categorized by case. As above, the ergative forms are also genitive.

Sinulatan ako ng liham.
"He/She wrote me a letter." Note: If "ng liham" is removed from the sentence, it becomes "I was written on"

Ibibigay ko sa kaniyá.
"I will give it to him/her."

Genitive pronouns follow the word they modify. Oblique pronouns can take the place of the genitive pronoun but they precede the word they modify.

Ang bahay ko.
Ang aking bahay.
"My house."

The 1st-2nd person dual pronoun kata/kita has largely disappeared in Manila though it may be used in other Tagalog dialects, particularly those spoken in the rural areas. However kita is used to replace the pronoun sequence [verb] ko ikaw, (I [verb] you).

The 1st-2nd dual pronoun "kata/kita" referring to "you and I" is traditionally used as follows:

The second person singular has two forms. Ikaw is the non-enclitic form while ka is the enclitic which never begins a sentence. The plural form kayo is also used politely in the singular, similar to French vous.

The nouns are gender neutral, hence siya means either he or she.

Demonstrative Pronouns

Tagalog's demonstrative pronouns are as follows.

Absolutive (ang)

Ergative (ng)

Oblique (sa)

Locative (nasa)

Existential

Nearest to speaker (this, here) *

iré, aré

niré

díne

nandine

ére

Near speaker and addressee (this, here)

itó

nitó

díto/ríto

nandíto/nárito

héto

Nearest addressee (that, there)

iyán

niyán

diyán/riyán

nandiyán/náriyan

ayán

Remote (yon, yonder)

iyón

niyón

doón/roón

nandoón/nároon

ayón

*For the most part, iré/aré has disappeared from the vocabulary of most Tagalog speakers. In its place, itó is used. Examples:

Anó itó?
"What's this?"

Sino ang lalaking iyon?
"Who is that man?"

Galing kay Pedro ang liham na itó.
"This letter is from Pedro."

Nandito akó.
"I am here."

Kakain silá roón.
"They will eat there."

Saán ka man naróroon.
"Wherever you are."

Kumain niyán ang batà.
"The child ate some of that."

Ayón palá ang salamín mo!
"So that's where your glasses are!"

Heto isang regalo para sa iyó.
"Here's a gift for you."

Verbs (Pandiwa)

Tagalog verbs are morphologically complex and take on a variety of affixes reflecting focus, aspect, mode, and others.

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Conjugation Chart

In the chart, CV stands for the reduplicated first syllable of a rootword, which is usually the first consonant and the first vowel of the word. N stands for a nasal consonant which assimilates to ng, n, or m depending on the consonant following it. 0 means that the verb root is used, so no affixes are added.

The dashes indicate the type of affix a particular morpheme is. For example -um- is an infix that is placed between the first consonant and the first vowel of a rootword. The word sumulat (actor focus and completed aspect or infinitive) is composed of the rootword sulat and the infix -um-. Its other conjugations are sumusulat and susulat.

With object-focus verbs in the completed and progressive aspects, the infix -in- frequently becomes the infix -ni- or the prefix ni- if the rootword begins with /l/, /r/, /w/, or /y/; e.g., linalapitan or nilalapitan and inilagay or ilinagay.

The imperative affixes are not often used in Manila, but they do exist in Tagalog-speaking provinces.

Infinitive

Contemplative

Progressive

Completed

Imperative

Actor Focus1

-um-

CV-

CumV-

-um-

0 (verb root)

Actor Focus2

mag-

magCV-

nagCV-

nag-

pag-

Actor Focus3

ma-

maCV-

naCV-

na-

Actor Focus4

mang-

mangCV-

nangCV-

nang-

pang-

Object Focus1

-in

CV- ... -in

CinV-

-in-

-a (or verb root)

Object Focus2

i-

iCV-

iCinV-

i-in-

-an

Object Focus3

-an

CV- ... -an

CinV- ... -an

-in- ... -an

-i

Locative Focus

-an

CV- ... -an

CinV- ... -an

-in- ... -an

Benefactive Focus

i-

iCV-

iCinV-

i-in-

Instrument Focus

ipaN-

ipaNCV-

ipinaNCV-

ipinaN-

Reason Focus

ika-

ikaCV-

ikinaCV-

ikina-

Focus

An interesting feature of verbs in Tagalog and in other Philippine languages is its focus system. This means that the role or relationship of the noun in focus (marked by the absolutive marker) is reflected in the verb.

There are eight main types of focus: actor, object, location, beneficiary, instrument, reason, direction and reciprocal. All of the focuses, with the exception of the actor focus, are naturally transitive.

Actor (Tagagawa)

The actor focus affixes are -um-, mag-, man-, and ma-. The difference between mag- and -um- is a source of confusion among learners of the language. Generally speaking there are two main distinctions among many; mag- refers to externally-directed actions and -um- for internally-directed actions. For example bumilí means to buy while magbilí means to sell. However this isn't writ law for these affixes; there are exceptions for example, mag-ahit means to shave oneself while umahit means to shave someone. It should be noted that magbili and umahit are rarely used,in southern dialects of tagalog na- is used instead of -um-.

ma- is used with only a few roots. Of those roots, they cannot take an object by their meaning. One of them is matulog (to sleep). ma- is not to be confused with ma-, the potentive prefix for object-focused verb forms.

Directional (Direksyunal)

Reciprocal (Resiprokal)

The reciprocal focus refers to the action being done by the subject at the same time. The subject, in this focus, is usually compound, plural or collective.

Naghalikan ang magkasintahan
"The couple kissed (each other)."

Aspect

Tagalog verbs conjugate for aspect rather than for tense. There are four types of aspect: infinitive (including imperative), completed (perfective), progressive (imperfective), and contemplated (usually future).

Infinitive
Gustó kong matulog.
"I want to sleep."

Matulog ka na!
"Go to sleep now!"

An imperative form can also be the verb root without any affix nor pronoun: Tulog na! "Sleep!"

CompletedSinulatan ka ni Maria.
"Maria wrote to you."

ProgressiveSumasayáw siyá ngayón.
"He is dancing now."

Sumasayáw siyá kanina.
"He was dancing earlier."

Noóng batà pa akó, umiinóm akó ng kapé.
When I was a child, I used to drink coffee.

Potential
Hindî siyá nakakapagsalitâ ng Tagalog.
"He is not able to speak Tagalog."

Modifiers

In Tagalog, a word can take the role of both an adverb and an adjective.

Adjectives modify nouns by the linker na. However if na follows a word ending in a vowel or glottal stop or the letter N, then it becomes suffixed to that word as -ng. The adjective can either come before or come after the word it modifies.

Adverbs modify verbs by following the verb and being marked by nang or preceding the verb with the linkers na or -ng, which is optional.

The order listed above is the order in which the particles follow if they are used in conjunction with each other. Generally, the last five particles listed can take any order however they are listed in the recommended order. The particles na and pa cannot be used in conjunction with each other as well as pô and hô.

Note for "daw/raw and rin/din": If preceding letter is a consonant except y and w, the letter d is used in any word, vice versa for r. Although in everyday speech, this rule is often ignored. Example: Pagdarasal, instead of pagdadasal Walâ pa yatang asawa ang kapatíd niyá.
"Perhaps his brother still doesn't have a wife."

Itó lang kayâ ang ibibigáy nilá sa amin
"I wonder if this is the only thing that they're going to give us."

The words daw and raw, which mean “he said”/“she said”/“they said”, are sometimes joined to the real translations of “he said”/”she said”, which is sabi niyá, and “they said”, which is sabi nilá. They are also joined to the Tagalog of “you said”, which is sabi mo. But this time, both daw and raw mean “supposedly/reportedly”.

Sabi raw niyá./Sabi daw niyá.
“He/she supposedly said.”

Sabi raw nilá./Sabi daw nilá.
“They supposedly said.”

Sabi mo raw./Sabi mo daw.
“You supposedly said.”

Although the word kasí is native Tagalog for “because” and NOT slang, it is still not used in literary writing. The Tagalog word for this is sapagká’t or sapagkát. Thus, the literary form of Batà pa kasí is Sapagká’t batà pa or Sapagkát batà pa. This is sometimes shortened to pagká’t or pagkát, so Sapagká’t batà pa is also written as Pagká’t batà pa or Pagkát batà pa. In both writing (whether literary or ordinary) and speech, dahil sa (the oblique form of kasí; thus, its exact translation is “because of”) is also synonymous to sapagká’t (sapagkát), so the substitute of Sapagká’t batà pa for Batà pa kasí is Dahil sa batà pa. Most of the time in speech and writing (mostly ordinary and probably literary), dahil sa as the Tagalog of “because” is reduced to dahil, so Dahil sa batà pa is spoken simply as Dahil batà pa.

Word Order

Tagalog word order Verb-Subject-Object (VSO) or more specifically, predicate initial (referred to in Tagalog grammar as Tuwirang Anyo).

Kumantá ang batà.
"The child sang."

Iinumín nilá ang serbesa.
"They will drink the beer."

Magandá ang mga dalaga.
"The young women are beautiful."

Malakás ang ulán.
"The rain is strong."

Word order may be inverted (referred to in Tagalog grammar as Kabalikang Anyo) by way of the inversion marker ay ( 'y after vowels). Contrary to popular belief, this is not the copulato be. A slight, but optional, pause in speech or a comma in writing may replace the inversion marker. This construction is often viewed by native speakers as formal or literary.

There are two "existentials" that are conjugated: "Magkaroón" (to have): magkaroón, nagkaroón, nagkákaroón, magkákaroón. Magkákaroón na raw ng kuryente bukas./Magkákaroón na daw ng kuryente bukas. (It is said that there will already be electricity {power} tomorrow.) In some Tagalog dialects, a redundant form combines "mayroón" with the prefix "magka-" (infinitive "magkamayroón" or magkaméron"). The words magkaroón, nagkaroón, nagkákaroón, magkákaroón, and mayroón are derived from roón, the variation of doón, meaning "there."

"Magíng" (to become): magíng, nagíng, nagíging, magíging. Note that the stress is shifted from the ultimate to the penultimate in both the progressive and contemplative. Nagíng gabí ang araw nang pumutók ang Pinatubò dahil sa dami ng abó sa himpapawíd! (Day became night when Mt. Pinatubo erupted because of the quantity of ash in the air!)

Conjunctions

Coordinating

Subordinating

Interrogative Words

With the exceptions of bakit, kamustá, and nasaán, all of the interrogative words have optional plural forms which are formed by reduplication. They are used when the person who is asking the question anticipates a plural answer.

Alín means which.

Alín ang punong-lungsód ng Estados Unidos - Washington, D.C. o New York?
"Which is the capital of the United States - Washington, D.C. or New York?"